In case you're wondering whether quantum entangled photons position themselves in a Yin Yang formation, the answer is no.
The image is not that of quantum entanglement of photons. Instead, the researchers used the technique of quantum entangled photons to CONSTRUCT the image.
hah, I knew the moment I saw the image that someone was going to poorly crop it, subtitle it, and spread it on social media claiming that entangled particles secretly looked like a yin yang this whole time.
Part of me wants to ignore that it's a constructed image and go on imagining entangled particles forming yin / yang images. Perhaps I can't critique the media too much for implying the same. Though the actual research seems interesting.
The paper[0] contains other images too but this one is certainly more intriguing even if it could lead people to jump to wrong conclusions.
About about this particular one they write:
Finally, Fig. 6 demonstrates an example of the potential applications of biphoton digital holography. The unknown pump beam can carry information about an image or be scattered by a three-dimensional object. The information about the scatterer is transferred to the SPDC state and can be retrieved through our technique (Fig. 6b). We show this in the case of off-axis holography, which can present limitations for complex structures due to the limited camera resolution. These limitations are not related to our proposal and can be improved by employing other approaches, for example, on-axis phase-shifting digital holography9.
Is that what you thought before you read the paper?
Many people (including myself and others in this HN thread) seem to have taken the yin-yang image as literal insight into the physical structure of a photon. They could have used a different image, perhaps one of their institution's logo and avoided this misinterpretation.
I didn’t have to, the subtext of the image in the linked article clearly says it was a reconstructed image they projected. As someone doing awesome science they get to choose their images.
> Biphoton state holographic reconstruction. Image reconstruction. a, Coincidence image of interference between a reference SPDC state and a state obtained by a pump beam with the shape of a Ying and Yang symbol (shown in the inset). The inset scale is the same as in the main plot. b, Reconstructed amplitude and phase structure of the image imprinted on the unknown pump. Credit: Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01272-3
It’s not their fault the world is full of people hoping to find magic when the science is more magical than where their weak imaginations led them.
I mean, just taking a step back for a second, the idea that the natural physical structure of a photon just so happens to match some Chinese philosophical symbol is laughable-borderline-hilarious. Anyone who actually believes that should probably seriously question their own gullibility.
In response to your edit adding the links, the first links top comment is :
> this is not an image of photon entanglement. if you read the actual paper it is explained that, in testing information reconstruction from biphoton states, the researchers encoded the Yin-Yang symbol onto the pump beam photons superimposed with reference photons. the superposition of these waveforms was then split into photon pairs which, after being separated, were sent onto a single photon sensor array.
Followed by the poster say “oh god damn”
The second link seems to redirect me to another story about fossils, so I’ll guess it was pulled?
If the wavefunction can be prepared in the same way multiple times you can do quantum state tomography on it to reconstruct the wavefunction, this is essentially what they do in the paper but in a more efficient way than the state of the art.
It increasingly often feels to me like the creator/programmer/whatever of this simulation (or whatever it is) is feeding us novel prompts to see how we will react. :)
That's a completely mental way of interperting this post and this world. I meant the physicist are doing it for funsies not the Lord almighty.
At face value your chain of logic isn't coherent, how can creator be sure he isn't just a creation? And you get to absurdities it's creators all the way down.
It's a visualization of the wave function, not an image of entangled photons, so it's meant to convey what the images represent in a form that's human "readable". (Think data visualizations)
Its worth emphasising that entanglement is not a two-party / duality specific thing.
You can entangle 2 particles, you can entangle 3 particles, you can entangle n particles (although actually doing so becomes a quite hard engineering problem as n grows), you can even entangle different properties of the same particle with each other so the spin and position of an electron can become entangled.
Human brains love dual/pairwise properties for some reason, but they don't seem to actually come up in physics very often.
Annoyingly, all we have is the word ‘constructed’ to describe the image, which could still imply there’s some natural process that reflects the Ying Yang structure. Is there anyone who knows if there’s really any connection between the Yin Yang shape and the data? Or was it just arranging the data into a fun shape with no relation to any physical properties? Does anyone here actually know?
If it was just arranged like that for the fun of it then it’s a sad day that scientific journalism neglects to mention that and uses click bait tactics and ambiguity to ‘promote’ scientific discoveries.
I was under the impression that being able to transfer information by entangled photons means that "instant" (ie; breaking light speed) communication is possible. Given the article doesn't mention this at all, what am I missing?
The image is not that of quantum entanglement of photons. Instead, the researchers used the technique of quantum entangled photons to CONSTRUCT the image.